• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

How much money does a cpu use?

M

mewannafastpc

Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2003
Messages
768
Ok so i look in the sisoft sandra thing to look at my cpu info just for reference, it says that my cpu is at 107 watts. I'm thinking wow ok that's alot, but in reality how much is that gonna equate to per month if i keep the computer on 6 to 8 hours a day everyday of the week?
the sandra thing says core power is 107 watts but it doesn't say per second or per minute or hour.
i just wondering how much this is gonna cost me....
anybody got answers?
 
Think about it like this. The average computer has a power draw equivilant to 1/4 to 1/3 that of a hairdryer.
 
mewannafastpc said:
so it's like having a blow drying on at 1/3 power for 6 to 8 hours a day?
Click to expand...


Something like that. Watts is already a unit of energy per time, and your electricity is metered in units of kilowatt*hours, which is really just energy. Anyhow, do this calculation:

(watts/1000)*(hours of usage per day)*(rate from your electric bill)

that will tell you the cost to run your CPU for that day. Keep in mind your PC consumes more power than that, you have other devices and other power losses.
 
what is the avearage cost a month if you run your "good" computer on avearage 6-8 hours a day???
 
That would depend on how much your electric company charges per a kilowatt...and I doubt it's around 200, unless that's not US dollars. My family's entire electric bill for a month is 120ish...sooo yeah..
 
mewannafastpc said:
about 200 give or take 30
Click to expand...

Holy crap that's high!! I run 2 servers 24/7 and have 2-3 other computers that run about 6 hours a day. My electrical bill for the entire house (3 people living here) is $100-120 a month.
 
here in Maine i pay about 11 cents per kilowatt hour so if the computer i use draws 300 watts and was on 8 hours per day that would be 2.4 KW/H per day or about 72 KW/H per month (30 day month) it would cost me $7.92 per month

also the 107 watt power spec on the Cpu is under max load and is rare to achieve unless you run toast or some other program design to stress the computer i don't think even Folding would use all that power but i might be wrong about that.
 
If you are in Cali living with other people you will get screwed. THere is something called a baseline. That is fine if you are a couple people. but with more than four people, ordinary households draw more than baseline, and the more you go over, they increase costs per KW/h exponentially. We were paying like $60 a head in cali for a house with 5 people no heat and basic usage. Here in Philly I run a dual monitor setup plus a 19" tv that is on constantly, no dryer or anything, and computer on 24/7 no energy saver (monitor gets turned off). I pay about $35/mo.

A CPU costs money, but it uses more wattage when it is at load. A computer sitting there idle takes little. If you have folding running, you will be tacking on 5-10 a month in electricity (guess), depending on area. In CA, that might mean $20-30 if you go above baseline.
 
/me makes note not to move to cali with my folding boxen
:eek:

In response to the guess about folding being the same as a "toast" stress test: Yes, folding will use all idle cpu cycles for its calculations, so it would push the cpu up to its max wattage, same as a stress test.


 
DaSmurf said:
In response to the guess about folding being the same as a "toast" stress test: Yes, folding will use all idle cpu cycles for its calculations, so it would push the cpu up to its max wattage, same as a stress test.
Click to expand...
Using all cpu cycles does not neccessarily mean you're using all it's power output.

From experience I'd put folding@home in 3rd place, behind prime95 at 2nd, with K7 Burn easily being number 1 (for AMD cpu's).

Nothing gets an AMD hot like K7 Burn. Nothing.
 
dariob said:
A CPU costs money, but it uses more wattage when it is at load. A computer sitting there idle takes little. If you have folding running, you will be tacking on 5-10 a month in electricity (guess), depending on area. In CA, that might mean $20-30 if you go above baseline.
Click to expand...

That probably helps me then. No folding on my boxes, so the machines don't draw nearly as much power as they could.
 
haha wow didn't know that my computer cost per month is around 100bucks for the electric and cable. no more dual monitor and tv in my room then. :(
 
A 107 watt CPU at full speed would probably be right around a 100 watt lightbulb.

Californians get shafted on electricity, I've seen *insane* monthly bills. Japanese also get shafted on electricity.

I'm loving in here in Calgary, its at 5.8 Canadian cents/kilowatt and I use about 300 kilowatts a month total (fridge/freezer/lights/P4 computer with 21 inch CRT monitor) So right around $17 Cdn worth of billable electricity a month... Of course the final bill is much higher because of "line and distribution charges".

Natural gas is used for heating in January (about 3x less expensive than electricity) which I'm glad because Natural gas can be upwards of $120 (would be closer to $300 if heated with electricity) in this arctically cold city.

I'm pretty happy regardless.

Whats a killer on electricity is air conditioning, it takes at least 3x more power to cool something than to heat it up. IE: takes the same amount of energy to raise the temperature 3 degrees as it does to lower 1 degree.
 
spine said:
Using all cpu cycles does not neccessarily mean you're using all it's power output.

From experience I'd put folding@home in 3rd place, behind prime95 at 2nd, with K7 Burn easily being number 1 (for AMD cpu's).

Nothing gets an AMD hot like K7 Burn. Nothing.
Click to expand...

True, I forgot to take into account that the program may not be simultaneously loading the FPU and Integer units, etc. Good catch!


 
I live in L.A. Normally I have three computers on 24 hours a day, except for the few reboots that I must endure. A few months ago I had to go out of country, so off they went. When I got back I notice a $60-$80 drop in my electric bill. So it seems that computers definably cost $.
 
ELEC CALCUALTOR:

http://reefcentral.com/calc/tank_elec_calc.php

You guys are crazy that it costs 200$ a month to run a computer. At the most it may cost $30 to run a full blown pc 24/7. Here. use this simple electricity calculator. It's actually what us salt tank reefers use to calcualte the cost of our tanks. But it is the same principal. Make sure you put in your total KW/hour cost. Which is your delivery/service charge. In NJ its about .10c a KW/Hour. Just use the first box (lighting full spectrum) and put lets say 400 watts, 12 hours a day, 12 months a year and it will calculate your monthly electric consumption.

Just so you know I have about 400 watts of light, and over 200 watts of pumps on my salt water reef and my bill is about $30 more a month.

Your computer consumes nowhere near this power.

400 Watts are consumed 10 hours a day, and the pumps run 24/7.

You guys are either paying .50c per KW/hour or there is something else seriously effecting your power bill.
 
they were asking for my electric bill, so i included everything
tv's, fridge, A/C, stove/range, all that good stuff
that came out to be 200
 
ZenOps said:
A 107 watt CPU at full speed would probably be right around a 100 watt lightbulb.

Californians get shafted on electricity, I've seen *insane* monthly bills. Japanese also get shafted on electricity.

I'm loving in here in Calgary, its at 5.8 Canadian cents/kilowatt and I use about 300 kilowatts a month total (fridge/freezer/lights/P4 computer with 21 inch CRT monitor) So right around $17 Cdn worth of billable electricity a month... Of course the final bill is much higher because of "line and distribution charges".

Natural gas is used for heating in January (about 3x less expensive than electricity) which I'm glad because Natural gas can be upwards of $120 (would be closer to $300 if heated with electricity) in this arctically cold city.

I'm pretty happy regardless.

Whats a killer on electricity is air conditioning, it takes at least 3x more power to cool something than to heat it up. IE: takes the same amount of energy to raise the temperature 3 degrees as it does to lower 1 degree.
Click to expand...

I concur, and the rebates we got in Alberta the past few years weren't that bad either. Incidentally, I just read an article about how Enron was scheming to screw us Albertans on energy also. You'd have to be crazy to own air conditioning in Calgary, although I know people that do. It's a major waste of money IMHO.
 
I never thought about having to pay for electricity before.
I am almost out of college and a never turn off my computer.
So I guess when I get an apartment I will have to make sure that electricity is included in the rent.
 
For those living in colder climates -- your computer is also a heater! Sooo, if you keep the computer in your main living area, and your computer burns $10 per month, that means that your heating system will have to work less. If you use electric heat, then your heater should, in theory, run $10 less. So you can run your computer for free in the winter.

In the summer, you also have to factor in the amount of electricity that the A/C uses in counteracting the extra heat load that the computer generates. Computer -> Heat -> A/C runs more.

Another thing that I have not seen mentioned on this thread is the efficiency of the power supply. If your computer parts are burning 300W, then your wall outlet is likely seeing a 375W load. Most power supplies are about 80% efficient (give or take 5%). Also, CRTs burn a lot more power than LCDs. Laser printers use more power than ink jets.
 
Look at the input wattage of the PSU. the CPU wattage is irrelevant, except in determining how much of the max input power the PSu is actually going to draw.


and Watts are inherently in per-seconds, so dont worry about hours/minutes. J/s... yeah physics
 
mentok1982 said:
I never thought about having to pay for electricity before.
I am almost out of college and a never turn off my computer.
So I guess when I get an apartment I will have to make sure that electricity is included in the rent.
Click to expand...

I don't want to even think about how much power I used in college. My little dormroom housed 15 computers, all on 24/7.


Harrkev said:
For those living in colder climates -- your computer is also a heater! Sooo, if you keep the computer in your main living area, and your computer burns $10 per month, that means that your heating system will have to work less. If you use electric heat, then your heater should, in theory, run $10 less. So you can run your computer for free in the winter.
Click to expand...

QFT

Even with my door open, my computer room runs 3-4 degrees hotter than the rest of the house. If the door is shut, my room will quickly soar to almost 80, even in the depths of winter. It doesn't effect our cooling bill, we only run the AC when it is really hot outside; and with the cooler summers my area has had, thats been maybe 6 or 7 days all year.

**edit**

Moving to LCDs makes a huge difference with heat output, but the power difference varies by how old your CRTs are if you have any. Modern CRTs are a hell of a lot more efficient than older ones, but either way, LCDs use less energy also.
 
It's about $30/month per functional PC, and that's running at full load 24/7 where I live.
Just for electricity. That's how much money a cpu uses. :rolleyes:
 
I just started a thread about electricity costs across the country. Its General Mayham, so if you haven't already; upgrade you account!
 
I live in Cali and my electric is not that bad with 8 PC's on 24/7 folding :)

Also I leave my A/C on 24/7 to keep my home around 75 degrees... (I like it colder)...

With that and my kid, wife, and everything else I have running... The PC portion (switches, routers, 6 desktops, 2 servers, 3 monitors, 2 printers, 1 fax, 2 multimedia speaker setup, etc) of the electric bill is quite low compaired to the rest...

I would say that each desktop is less then $10.00 per month to run 24/7
 
It's easy in Texas to figure out your rate. There is a website run by the PUC that gives rates in any area in TX. http://www.powertochoose.org/.

I have a watt-mater on my computer, and it pulls about 200 watts with the monitor and speakers off. The 19" CRT monitor pulls about 80 watts when on, and the Klipsch Promedia 5.1 speakers pull 50 watts. It's folding 24/7 and I calculated it out to around $10 a month to run the computer, at 11 cents per KwH.

Specs are: Athlon XP 2500+ mobile@2425MHz
768MB Ram(1 512MB PC3500 Corsair XMS and 1 256MB PC3200 Corsair XMS) 2-3-3-8 at 212MHz
Geforce 6800GT
1 80GB Maxtor PATA drive
1 260GB Hitichi SATA drive
2 cd/ddvd burners
2 120mm fans
3 80 mm fans
Ehiem waterpump, swiftech waterblock
 
Yeah, I had my roommates bitching about my computer's power consumption and I was thinking what freaking idiots...

I have a 3000+ @ 2.5ghz, dual 6800GT's @ ultra speeds, 6 Hard drives, 2 opticals, and a gb of ram.

I never see the draw go over 350w maybe 370w at the most and usually it is running ~300w,

The lights above my bathroom mirror draw more power...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top